The Marcos Revival

Absolution Without Contrition?

The last column I wrote calling to question the Filipino voters capacity to feel shame or behave like amnesiacs by voting into the senate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., drew many passionate responses including one that rationalized support for him based on his so called accomplishments in his home province of Ilocos Norte.

Most of the readers who commented via email agreed with my column’s premise with one angrily saying that “SHAME is not in their (the voters) vocabulary nor with many of the politicians”.

As journalists our most valuable asset is our credibility and the ability to listen to as many sides of an issue as possible, especially those articulated by our readers. And it is in this spirit that I am revisiting the issue of Marcos Jr.’s election to the senate in particular, and the nascent Marcos revival in general.

Let’s discuss the comment that we should elevate Marcos Jr. to high national office, which a senate seat represents, because he has done some good things for his Ilocano constituents. Should we? My answer is an emphatic NO!! Just because Dr. Joseph Mengele opened his clinic to native peoples deep in the Amazon, it did not absolve him from culpability for all his atrocious crimes against the Jews and Gypsies in World War II Germany. If he were caught alive he would have been taken to trial, convicted and hanged by the neck like so many Nazi war criminals were. Doling out aspirins to natives would not have meant squat!

Marcos Jr. can continue doing his good deeds, yet it must be understood that regardless the number of schoolhouses he causes to be built, regardless the thousands of miles of roads he gets paved, the crimes for which he and his family are accused of cannot be casually absolved nor forgiven . There must be some accounting for the penury and destitution they left our country in. Culpability for the blood shed, the wounds caused and the lives scarred or annihilated in their name must be established and adjudicated in the courts of justice .

Sadly, they have not done so and sadder more, those in power from 1986 on, whether they be the governments of Mrs. Aquino, Gen. Ramos or Madame Macapagal-Arroyo, have been conspicuous in their sheer incompetence, or lack of fervor, in the pursuit of the evil doers from the Marcos regime. And, by and large, the media coverage of these crimes and the demand for swift and decisive action to bring about justice, have been tepid and lukewarm to say the least. At worst some in the media have been acting like paid sycophants hoping perhaps that their flattery of Team Marcos will redound in generous largess bestowed upon them. One of our readers said, “I attended a party in Manila a few years ago which was also attended by Imelda. You cannot imagine the fawning and flattering that went on around her”.

And truly, what we have seen happening instead is that a revisionist history is being narrated. We have seen unfold the “Imelda version” of the facts from 1965 thru 1986. “What is ours will be returned,” she is quoted as saying. A simple computation will dispel any notion that their wealth was obtained thru legitimate means.

What was the value of their assets before 1965? What was the salary of the president of the Philippines for all the years they occupied Malacanang? What was the salary of the Metro Manila governor for the time she was occupying this office? Let’s say that (incredibly) they were a frugal couple and saved 90% of their salaries and saved one million pesos a year. This would only come up to 21 million pesos for the time period. How did they get to accumulate $10 billion in Swiss and other concealed accounts? How did Imelda get to amass the jewelry collection that is supposedly to be auctioned by Christie’s for several billions (if that is ever to happen)?

It is said often that Filipinos are a very forgiving people. We were a colony of Spain for some 400 years and many of those recalled as an oppressive occupation. We then had a country run and managed by Americans for some 50 years. The Japanese atrocities were remembered as brutal in its cruelty. Yet today we maintain excellent relationships with Spain, the USA and Japan and treat their citizens with great hospitality in our country. Should we not, therefore, also be as forgiving with our politicians and leaders like the Marcoses?

I have no problem with forgiveness. Ours is after all a deeply religious Christian country and offering the other cheek is consistent with our convictions. Yet, it must be understood that before forgiveness can be dispensed there must be true contrition. The Marcoses, starting with Imelda, must “come clean” as they say, and express their mea culpas openly, completely and honestly. And along with contrition must come restitution. It is not enough to say ‘ I’m sorry’ and then keep the loot they have amassed. The treasure must be restored to the country’s coffers. And those who murdered and tortured must be made to face charges and appropriate punishment.

Will this ever happen? Given Imelda’s attitude and her family’s behavior, likely not. But if Ferdinand Marcos Jr. can do the unlikely and seemingly impossible and lead his family to face the bar of justice and accept the people’s judgment, then he will really demonstrate how great and courageous a leader he is. And after their time is served and they are again rightfully free to rejoin our society, then indeed Ferdinand Marcos Jr. deserves consideration for the highest office his country can bestow on him. While I am an optimist, I am also a realist. And the likely scenario is that he will just buy his way to the presidency in 2016. I hope, for once, the Marcoses will prove me wrong.

The author can be reached at his email address : ldq44@aol.com

Marcos Jr. Elected to RP Senate?

Have We no Shame? Or Are We Just
a Country of Amnesiacs?


There is some very troublesome result emanating from the May 10 elections. It seems now that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has gained a seat in the Philippine senate and that he was tracking in the middle of the field of 12 winners.

How could this possibly happen? We are only a mere generation or so removed from that very dark period in our history where we saw unlawful arrests and extra judicial executions of innocent Filipinos whose only crime it seems was the articulation of views found displeasing to the conjugal dictators Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

Yes, the very same Marcoses who amassed over $10 billion in wealth extracted thru plunder from the treasury of a poverty stricken nation. The very same rulers who for twenty one years aided and abetted their cronies, friends and relatives in the forceful, unlawful usurpation of other people’s businesses and properties that they fancied and wanted for their own.

And now the scion of that world notorious couple is elected to the Philippine senate? And don’t give me that “ the sins of the father should not be visited on the son” dribble of an argument either. All the Marcos offspring were complicit in, and beneficiaries of, their parents shameless theft of the nation’s wealth and dignity. They should never have been allowed back into the country, and if they did come back they should have been thrown into the darkest dungeons that could be found.

So we now ask why? Why did Filipinos vote this man as one of the “leading” 12 candidates for the national senate? It is almost understandable, though not necessarily forgivable, that the “solid north”, that grouping of northern provinces that is predominantly Ilocano, gave him a generous share of their votes. Yet no candidate relying solely of that bloc’s votes can expect to win a national office. Filipinos in other regions, including cities populated by supposedly “educated” and “sophisticated” voters also supported him.

And it seems that the cat is now out of the bag: Marcos Jr.’s election, along with the election of his mother Imelda to the lower house and his sister Imee’s election as governor of Ilocos Norte are all part of a bigger, wider plot to once again wrest control of political power nationwide. (In Imelda's case there is the added "benefit" of being a "legislator" and therefore legal action against her can be perversely dubbed as "political" vendetta.)


And we are now beginning to see clear tell-tale signs of the forthcoming “Marcos Revival ”, and it seems that as with Marcos I, many in the media will be as docile with Marcos II and only too willing to serve as willing tools in the propaganda effort. There is, for example, a two page spread in one of the Northern California newspapers not only touting Marcos Jr.’s “education” and his “accomplishments” but also rehashing the quite discredited claims of the World War II heroism by the older Marcos. It is also hailing Imelda’s past as Metro Manila governor without mentioning the fact that it was a position created by her dictator husband and handed to her gift wrapped as it were, and not one that she earned by virtue of election by the Manila region’s suffering multitudes. The spread reads quite like a well contrived public relations fairy tale and not a journalistic endeavor worthy of even the throw away newsprint that carries it.

The Marcos II p.r. machine is working overtime, it seems. A newly sprung Southern California weekly carried in its May 15- 21 issue an unbylined, unattributed “news” item, complete with photographs, of the Marcoses so called effort to “revive” the KBL or the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, the party formed by the dictator after he had wrested absolute power in the 1970’s. The report states that the Marcoses had a “reunion” with former colleagues and henchmen of the now dead strongman. These people who should be in jail are now partying to bring the old Marcos order back?
The item reports that Imelda Marcos said “she was confident of winning back much of the wealth seized from her family.” It quotes her as saying, “I am sure the things that are ours will come back”.

I don’t know about other people but reading this quote makes me feel like puking out my guts. The nerve and the chutzpah of this woman and this family is unbelievable. They seem to really believe and act as if the $10 billion or so that they siphoned away “belonged” to them. But what is truly inconceivable is how and why the Filipino people seem to let them get away with their brazen shamelessness. Yes, indeed, that is the message one gets from the results of the May 10 election of Marcos Jr. to the senate.

We have forgotten, it seems, their culpability in the unjust incarceration and torture of so many who protested their regime’s abuses over 21 years in power. We have forgotten perhaps the blood shed by many thru mysterious disappearances and extra judicial killings so benignly and mockingly labeled “salvaging”. We no longer recall the abyss to which our country was driven to by the wanton profligacy of this family and their allies.

The Philippine senate was once an honored and lofty chamber populated by such luminaries as Claro M. Recto, Jovito R. Salonga, Jose P. Roy, Raul S. Manglapus and Emmanuel N. Pelaez to name a few. It has now sadly been defiled and irretrievably soiled by the elevation of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to its membership roster. What is truly tragic is that we as a nation, thru our vote last May 10, are complicit in this foul deed.

Have we no shame? Are we no more than a nation of amnesiacs? Have we not learned our lesson? Shall the Marcos nightmare once again be visited upon our population? Will history repeat itself?